Kusiri, a UK startup, has won the 3D FinTech Challenge 2013, an accelerator programme focused on innovating client data visualisation in the financial services industry. The 6-week challenge was led by Dassault Systèmes the 3DEXPERIENCE company, as part of its drive to bring accelerated product innovation, immersive 3D visualisation and process digitisation to the financial services arena and was jointly designed and delivered by Pivotal Innovations at Level39, Canary Wharf Group’s accelerator initiative.

Kusiri have been awarded a cash prize of £15,000 and invited to participate in Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE Customer Forum in Las Vegas in November 2013, where they will showcase their product to over 200 major global corporations.

The 3D FinTech Challenge 2013 identified, nurtured and accelerated financial services start-ups focused on innovative products and solutions which enable a true ‘single view’ of client data, enabling organisations to gain better insights. This focus was articulated by senior executives at financial institutions to ensure that the 3D FinTech Challenge 2013 delivered solutions for current challenges faced by the financial services industry. During the six week programme, the finalists benefited from immersive master classes, on-going commercial mentoring from senior executives at Dassault Systèmes and leading global financial institutions, as well as receiving technical and legal support.

Several finalists have also already secured or are in discussions regarding piloting opportunities, allowing them to test and deploy their products, while other teams are in discussions to raise additional investment. Most teams have chosen to take office space at Level39, gaining full access to the Level39 community of entrepreneurs, startups, high growth companies and mentors.

CEO of Kusiri, Tim Clark, said, “We’re absolutely delighted to have won the 3D FinTech Challenge 2013. It has allowed us to evolve our product and to focus our business proposition. The support from Dassault Systèmes, the mentors, Level39 and Pivotal Innovations has been exceptional. There’s been tremendous collaboration between the six teams which has built relationships and created opportunities that we wouldn’t otherwise have had. All members of the Kusiri team have worked very hard to maintain focus on existing clients whilst shaping this winning proposition.”

Kevin Pleiter, Vice President of Financial and Business Services, Dassault Systèmes said “Accelerated product innovation is at the heart of Dassault Systèmes’ heritage. The 3D FinTech Challenge has allowed us to share this heritage and nurture high performance startups delivering accelerated product innovation that directly addresses the needs of the financial services community. The achievements of the finalists over the past six weeks have exceeded all expectations. We are thankful to the banking community and the industry experts for partnering with us to provide the essential ingredients that made this programme successful. We congratulate Kusiri on delivering an exceptional solution and look forward to tracking their future success.”

Eric Van der Kleij, Head of Level39 has said “The 3D FinTech Challenge is a terrific example of how a large corporate can directly support tech innovators in a positive, encouraging fashion that helps these young companies gain visibility and traction. The concept of an established company, like Dassault Systèmes, aiding the acceleration of young companies is a powerful and topical economic model that fits with the new, more open approach of financial services today and the technologies that it supports. We are proud to join Dassault Systèmes in celebrating Kusiri’s success.”

Claire Cockerton, CEO of Pivotal Innovations has said "We measure our success by the outcomes for all participating businesses in our programmes. The level of accelerated business development and market traction the start-ups have demonstrated through the Challenge’s intensive support and curriculum has been outstanding across the board. This said, 3D FinTech was a real competitive Challenge. However, one of the differences from other FinTech challenges that we have run, was that competitors also had an opportunity to collaborate to deliver even stronger solutions to meet the banks’ needs. We are very proud to join Dassault Systèmes in celebrating the extraordinary accomplishments and compelling technical solution of the winning team”

Details of the six finalistsACE Consensus: A digital platform that provides very high quality information on market expectations for listed companies. A proprietary process ensures that outputs are consistent, comparable, comprehensive and current. ACE data is readily scalable, and valuable to many financial market stakeholders, including listed companies, sell side analysts, investment managers, and the financial media. ACE is backed by investors including the University of Oxford’s Said Business School, and shortly hopes to announce a significant investment from a leading venture capital firm.

Intrepid: Intrepid has developed "3People"; a web based application which enables sales teams to sell more efficiently and effectively. Leveraging data from internal, external, structured and unstructured sources, 3People intuitively searches, explores, analyses and informs on the highest propensity-to-buy people. Intuitive visualization of the data and interactive trend discovery allow users to build trust in the system, explore hidden patterns and relationships in the data and create a true consumer style information experience.

Kusiri: London-based team have enhanced their existing enterprise solution for client forensic research and investigation, streamlining external data searches whilst retaining the security of client information held behind firewalls in a single workbench functionality that allows compliance officers to carry out fully auditable searches and background checks as part of AML and KYC procedures.

LBM: Based at Level39‘s High Growth Space,this team have developed an off-the-shelf technology solution, Decision Genius, that utilises artificial intelligence technology to develop new insights into client data, such as finding patterns, to help predict next best actions. Their chosen technology does not require programming expertise and will allow non-technical users, such as marketers, to use natural language queries to interrogate client data, and thereby deliver new insights in a visual output.

Logical Glue: The team, based in London provides customised computational intelligence models (based on patented technologies) such as Fuzzy Logic that outperform traditional statistical regression models. They have created a platform producing reason-based output in a way that enables financial services institutions to understand the reasoning behind a specific output, in an easily consumed format for institutions, regulators and customers.

About Dassault SystèmesDassault Systèmes, the 3DEXPERIENCE Company, provides business and people with virtual universes to imagine sustainable innovations. Its world-leading solutions transform the way products are designed, produced, and supported. Dassault Systèmes’ collaborative solutions foster social innovation, expanding possibilities for the virtual world to improve the real world. The group brings value to over 170,000 customers of all sizes, in all industries, in more than 140 countries. For more information, visit www.3ds.com.

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